JERUSALEM: A stabbing attack at a transport station in the Israeli city of Haifa left one person dead and several wounded on Monday, medics said, in what police called a "terror attack" whose perpetrator was killed.
It was the first fatal attack in Israel since a ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip on January 19 between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The attack came as negotiations between the two sides stalled after the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire ended at the weekend.
Medical teams "have pronounced the death of a man around 70 years old and are providing medical treatment to and evacuating four injured individuals", Israel's Magen David Adom emergency service said.
It said a man and woman around 30 years of age as well as a 15-year-old boy were seriously injured.
Israeli police label as "terror" attacks those connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but they have yet to confirm the identity of the perpetrator in Monday's attack.
Police had originally reported the attack as a shooting.
AFP journalists who arrived after the wounded were evacuated saw the attacker's body on the ground under a blanket.
The attack took place at a bus and train station in Haifa, a large coastal city in northern Israel home to a mixed Jewish and Arab population.
Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza on Sunday after a disagreement with Hamas over extending the ceasefire.
One dead in Israel stabbing attack, assailant ‘killed’: first responders
https://arab.news/zzfeb
One dead in Israel stabbing attack, assailant ‘killed’: first responders
- First responders said a victim of a stabbing attack on Sunday in the Israeli city of Haifa has died
Palestinian president affirms efforts to release Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison
- Mahmoud Abbas praised Barghouti’s resilience during a meeting with his wife, Fadwa, at presidential headquarters in Ramallah
LONDON: President Mahmoud Abbas emphasized the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to support calls for the release of senior Fatah leader and Central Committee member Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli prison.
On Tuesday, Abbas received Fadwa Barghouti, his wife, at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah, affirming that his release has always been a top priority for both the presidency and the Fatah movement.
Abbas praised Barghouti, who has been in Israeli prisons since April 2002 after receiving five life sentences plus 40 years for his conviction of carrying out deadly attacks on Israelis during the peak of the Second Intifada of 2000.
Hamas proposed Barghouti’s name on the list of prisoners to be exchanged for Israeli captives, but Israel declined to release him in October. The 66-year-old national figure also served over four years in prison in 1978 for political activism. Analysts have long seen him as a potential presidential candidate if and when he is released from prison.
His family accused Israel Prison Service officers of having beaten him unconscious. In August, the Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted video footage showing him visiting Barghouti in prison and making threatening remarks to him.
